Health Care: What Should a Populist Do Now?

Conclusion The most common response to the suggestion that private contracts could be useful in reforming the health-care system for the benefit of ordinary Americans is the observation that people—ordinary Americans in particular—cannot reasonably be expected to read, let alone understand and compare, the multiple contracts they would confront. This point, however, while valid, is beside the real one, which is to give adequately subsidized consumers meaningful choices with respect to the cost and content of their future health care and enough reliable help in making them that they can be reasonably content with their decisions. Buying a health plan is, of course, a huge investment for every consumer, requiring monthly payments far bigger than almost anyone’s car payments. For this reason and also because it may not be easy to change health plans down the road, consumers should certainly approach the purchase of a plan contract as a serious matter. But there are good reasons to expect that marketplaces structured and operated as recommended to a hypothetical populist in this essay would yield millions of long-term, generally satisfactory legal relationships in which consumers are content to live with their health plans and their providers—for better or for worse (in sickness and in health). There are at least some reasons to hope these relatively “free” markets would be less commercialized, with less advertising, than the current one. Of course, it is most unlikel...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs